WORLD BOOK WORLD BOOK WORLD BOOK 0116 0116
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who neglects these rudimentary precautions; his bones
and others soon grace the dunes.
The wise adopt other practices to extend their lives
and their profits. The protection of cargo is worth plenty
to the caravan masters, so they can afford some protective magic. Those who can afford wizards use scrying
magic to watch the surrounding desert for trouble. Coin
and favors can earn them aerial observation and protection from the Penmai Nok forest people suspended
from their flying Sanid mounts; these fliers are glad to
keep the caravan safe, but camp apart, finding the essence of camp life unseemly.
Left to its own devices, a caravan can easily consume half its
cargo capacity in food and water provisions over the length
of a single journey. Caravan masters find such consumption
wasteful if not ruinous. Instead, they rely upon contracted,
local sources for provisions whenever possible. Some points
are fixed, such as known wells or the permanent camps of
local farmers and herdsmen. Others are as mobile as the
caravan itself: slave and thakal wagon trains dedicated
to supplying the larger caravans while on the march. Of
course, those who know the appointed times and places of
these contacts have great power over the wagon train.
A caravan’s endurance cannot surpass that of its mostburdened animals. Any train can continue for a full week
before its trisaurs and thakals become fatigued. Any time
beyond that demands extra care not to tax them too
heavily. Subsequent days must sacrifice time each day for
rest and watering, slowing the caravan’s progress. Failure
to accommodate the animals thus risks their injury or
death. An injured animal is difficult to save, especially
without magical aid, so most are discarded. Fatigued animals become more difficult to handle and keep to task.
Very fatigued creatures can go berserk and damage everything around them—a chaotic circumstance every
caravan master seeks to avoid. Any teamster who allows
his animal to run amok gets punished for his oversights
and forced to pay for his animal’s damages.
Hijackers
Stealing from a moving caravan is the dream of the
desperate, but there is little to gain other than making
off with a day’s rations or a handful of baubles. Enterprising thieves know they must hijack entire wagons to
make off with anything worthwhile, and they plan accordingly. Hijackers must infiltrate a caravan with robbers who can handle beasts and drive them away with
wagons intact. They have their best luck toward the back
of the caravan amid difficult terrain where they can slip
away and hide, or at night, when one well-planned diversion can make all the difference.
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The dark hearted also turn to subtler options in the mysterious realms of Khitus. Surreptitious hijackers can turn to
magical mind control, bringing drivers unwillingly under
their power, clouding their judgment just long enough for
them to drive off course in a sand storm to their waiting
“rescue.” Animals can be similarly controlled, or even influenced by skilled handlers and “whisperers” who know
how to tap into their weak minds. Very often, anything portable is divided among a crew, while identifiable wagons
or animals with brands are disguised, discarded, or sold to
those with even less scruples than hijackers.
Major Sites of
Interest
While many vistas of the Khitan wastelands are dull
seas of sand and scrub, there are some locales and areas
outside civilized settlements worthy of tales and talk.
Floating Earth Motes
Cultured folk, safe in their water-fat cities far from
where dust lives and breathes, derisively dismiss tales
of windborne islands in the skies. Wanderers know such
things exist in the deep country, carrying false promises
of life on incessant winds.
Alluvial soils and dust mix with the micro-fine tangle
of minute roots and plants, some eventually swirling
along the ground like a child’s top, growing larger as
they collect more loose material. In time, the bigger
ones are lofted high into the air on wicked winds and
stay aloft for days or weeks at a time. All the while, their
altitude changes drastically, ranging from bare fingers
above the desert surface to heights barely visible from
the ground. Harsh winds support and tear away at them
alike, sometimes rending them to pieces midair, the
new remnants buoyed by ever-refreshed hot updrafts
from below. The least “floaters” are no bigger than dinner plates, swirling in accruals by the hundreds like
flocking birds. The largest motes can measure scores of
cubits across, though, sufficiently buoyed to stay aloft
and possibly carry the weight of visitors upon its evercrumbling and shifting surface.
Motes attract all manner of avian creatures, but never
for prolonged activity. Flying insects swarm them, the
mote’s eventual demise often farther off than their own.
Birds follow them around the sky, feeding on the plentiful insects; few birds nest on motes as there is insufficient time to hatch an egg before it disappears. Sanid,
the great birds mastered by the Penmai, seek floating
